CNN is reporting this afternoon that Sen. Barack Obama is leaving Trinity United Church of Christ, his longtime religious home on Chicago’s South Side and a place that has triggered repeated controversies during his presidential bid.

Whew! It’s a good thing Obama got out in front of this controversy before it started to hurt him.

UPDATE: Here’s the YouTube of his press conference. I think he did this about as well as he could–the way he tells it, that gosh-darn press was harassing Trinity, so he’s trying to leave them in peace–but it’s still going to hurt him.

He sat in those pews for twenty years and was quite familiar with what goes on there. He benefited from that association as he rose in Illinois politics, but as he himself admits, Trinity’s radical, politicized preaching is now hurting his Presidential campaign. Business is business: